


when the fires have surrounded you

by everAcclimating



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gun Violence, M/M, Many Small Cameos, Minor Injuries, Nonverbal Communication, Nonverbal Dirk, Pining, Serious Injuries, Sign Language, Two Men And A Baby Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24855400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everAcclimating/pseuds/everAcclimating
Summary: (and the whole wide world's coming after you)dirk and john are apocalypse survivors raising a kid together. what could possibly go wrong!written in a series of 5 15 minute sprints with minimal editing.
Relationships: John Egbert/Dirk Strider
Comments: 3
Kudos: 80
Collections: Purrsonal Picks





	when the fires have surrounded you

It's dark. It's always dark these days even when the sun is out, if only metaphorically. But right now it's literal and you've got a flashlight trained down into the guts of the beater you're trying to fix as quietly as possible and your partner is trying to keep the kid you picked up quiet in the backseat and just as she lets out a small wail the battery sparks and burns your hand and you grunt as you hear John feverishly whispering _it's okay, Casey, it's okay. It's just Dirk_ like that's going to calm her down when she's three years old and doesn't know shit about fuck.

She was born during the end of the world and her parents bit the big one not long after, which is all you know about her. Not even the name her parents gave her. John slapped the _Casey_ moniker on her and you ran with it because that's all you could do. You're shit at naming things. Anyway you've had her around for three years now and you made her birthday the same as John's because you don't know when her real birthday is. It'd been strange, hoarding formula and hoping it was still good, boiling water to purify it for her, then later pureeing food as well as you could by chopping it so intensely with a knife it turned into a paste. It had worked well enough, because here she is, curled up in John's arms and whimpering because even not knowing any different, she knows when things aren't safe.

Things are very not safe right now. You breathe in, breathe out, and notice movement out the corner of your eye. Drawn in by Casey, probably, but you can't blame her. You whirl, slamming a wrench into the side of the rotten head that's looming too close to comfort for you, and the grotesque sound it makes makes you wince. But just a moment after that you turn back to the car and in a fit of pique slam the wrench head-first into the starter—the car starts.

_For fuck's sake_ you think, but you pop the hood back into place and hop into the driver's seat, gross wrench on the floor of the passenger's side. You take off just as reinforcements arrive, but driving through the dead is far easier than facing them head on. You just keep the windows up and the engine running.

The night drags on slow but the morning is sunny as shit and the light burns your eyes as you scramble for your shades to put them on. Your last good pair gave up the ghost a couple months ago, but you can't see worth a damn without them in the daytime, so you've popped on some aviators that used to belong to your older brother. You grip the steering wheel a little tighter at the thought of him, compartmentalize, and move on.

Didn't have to go that way, but he did. Protecting you, protecting your whole group, a last man standing deal while everyone else escaped. He shoved his shades into your hands and told you to run and you wanted to argue but his tone didn't _let_ you so you fucking ran. You ran and you didn't see what happened to him but you don't know if anyone could have escaped that mass of dead fuckers, even though you'd like to believe he's immortal.

You were fifteen then. You're twenty now, and five years without seeing him pretty much means he's dead as a door-nail. You haven't seen him among the dead either though, not shambling and trying to bite a chunk out of you, so a small part of you holds on to hope even though you know the only reason you haven't seen a walker of him is because you ran so far so fast from that place that a slow-ass dead fucker could never have caught up.

Everyone from that group is dead now. Every single one. You're the last man standing then, in the end, and you met up with John about a month before you both found Casey so you figure it means something, because he felt familiar in a way you couldn't place because you'd never actually met him before. Casey was a year old when you bonded for real, because you found out John's father died the same fuckin' way your bro did, so you realized that the reason he seemed so familiar that first day was because you hold the same trauma. Everyone does these days, of course, but this is particularly personal.

You check the rear-view mirror and look at him, asleep in the back with Casey cradled against him, and your lips uptick at the corners at the sight. It's a private smile, one you won't show him, and that's fine.

Your bro taught you most everything you know, but you picked up a lot of skills after everything went to shit. You're good with machines, so whenever you all stop somewhere to stay, you barter your way in with your abilities. Fixing someone's car, keeping the place's generator going when it's on its last legs, you do it all. John's good at stuff too: building things, keeping people smiling, cooking. He doesn't bake anymore, he says with a laugh, and you think it's part of the father trauma he's got, but you don't talk about that because it's none of your goddamn business unless he tells you first.

The goal right now is to find a new group to hole up with for a while, and having a working car is a bonus while having a small child is a detriment. Lotta places are glad to see a kid but not to have them stay, because a sobbing child is bait for a bite, if you get the drift. Thing is though, that sound Casey let out last night was a rarity. She don't talk much, though she knows how, cries even less, and she's like all kids born in this hell: they come outta the womb knowing how to be quiet. People just don't believe she's as quiet as she is until they experience it themselves. They believe how quiet you are right away, but her... Not so much.

It's a matter of getting them to that trial period.

It's when you get stopped by a man with a shotgun that you pause and lift your hands off the wheel in a universal sign of surrender while dragging your feet back off the gas to thump on the floor in your signal to wake John up. He stirs and moves real slow, peeking up over the seat and setting Casey down on the floor between his knees in case things get bloody. "Morning!" he chirps, and you can tell he's a little on-edge just like you are. It's rough; you wince, but the man jerks his gun to the side like he's telling you to get out. You can't get to your gun from here before he can shoot because it's on the seat next to you so you just nod and step out real quiet-like.

"The other one too," he says, and you can hear John shift behind you while you run your tongue over your teeth. He gets out though, closing the door real gentle to make sure Casey doesn't get out, and you leave yours open in case you need to dive for the gun. "What're you up to?" He asks you, and you wiggle your fingers helplessly before John comes to your rescue.

"He can't speak," John explains, his own hands up to the sky. "Which is an issue, since he's the brains of the operation, but I can translate for you if you want! You just have to let him use his hands is all."

The man snorts, and looks from him to you. "That true?"

You shrug helplessly. He jams the barrel of the gun against your sternum so hard it'll bruise and though you open your mouth, the only thing that comes out is a rasping little breath. "Fine," he allows finally, and frowns real hard at the both of you. "So translate. What're you two up to?"

Your hands move quickly but succinctly, measured movements that can't possibly be misinterpreted as violence. John speaks aloud, your voice in this. "We're just traveling right now," he begins, "we've been trying to find a place to settle. Our last camp got raided and we had to move on. It was about fifty miles south, down by Baton Rouge." You close your eyes behind the shades, briefly, and open them again. You're getting anxious, but things seem alright at the moment.

The man laughs though, in a way you don't like, and when he speaks again you understand why. "Wondered where you'd gotten off to," he admits, and jerks the gun toward the car. "You got the little one in there too? She mute like this one? They look cut from the same cloth. Maybe she's yours, huh?"

Your anger is building and it's difficult for you to refrain from signing some very rude things, but you manage. Never mind that you were seventeen when she was born, never mind that the idea of having a kid in this climate makes you physically ill--you and Casey don't even look that alike. You're just both blond. So you just roll your eyes and shake your head, signing bluntly.

John's tone changes. Real quiet. "We lost her a while back," he murmurs, voice contrite and measured, but with a waver at the edge that impresses you. "Big group came up on us a couple days back and she got bit. There was no saving her." The last signs are done sharply, angrily, and you stare him right in the eyes as you go on. "Could've been prevented," John says, eyes on your hands, "if we hadn't had to run."

The man doesn't even grimace. "Well then, what the fuck do I need you two alive for? Was gonna keep you around to keep her docile while she grew up. Fucking useless now."

The real goal he had dawns on you just as he levels the gun at John and you grunt, surging forward with enough force that you knock the barrel far enough aside so that only the edge of the spread catches John, ripping into his arm instead of his torso. Your ears are ringing from the gunshot so close to your head but you think you can hear Casey screaming past the tin in your head. You pull the knife out of your boot and shift as he tries to fight you, jamming it up through his throat so that the blood bubbles up and he can't even cry out as he dies, just gurgle and slap uselessly at your arm while you drag it aside to _really_ open him up good.

He bleeds out against you and you push him off of you, then turn back to John as you wipe the knife off on the man's shirt. he's bleeding but standing, and there're a load of dead in the distance coming your way, brought by the shotgun blast. You sign to him frantically to get in the car and staunch the bleeding until you can stop again: Casey is sobbing in the backseat, soft and full of hiccuping, and you need to get out of here. You're shaking as you slip into the driver's seat.

John somehow has the presence of mind to grab the man's shotgun before climbing into the backseat and trying to calm Casey down while simultaneously trying to stop his arm from bleeding. He's very talented.

You drive off just as the man's partners show up, so fuck them all. Your chest aches from the stress but you get away, far away, and you manage. God, but you manage. You drive away from the hordes, the living and dead, and you keep going until you're at a rest stop with a bench and you park crooked in the handicapped spot as your usual joke and haul out to get to the trunk where the first aid supplies are. Casey is asleep and John is looking ashen next to her. You nod to him and he climbs out, gripping his arm a little too hard and sitting down on the hood of the car. You have to rip the sleeve of his shirt off to get at the meat of the wound but you don't think twice before you do it, and you use a pair of tweezers you doused in moonshine to pluck out the buckshot. He hisses and winces but you just grunt a little because your hands are busy. He puts his good hand on your shoulder to steady himself and it's warm, grip solid. You relax, but minutely, and nudge his temple with your forehead as you work.

Thankfully the wounds could be way worse so you do your best and wrap him up with gauze and tape and clean your hands as best you can. You don't have many tylenol left because they're rarer than gold these days but you give him two and the last bottle of clean water and smooth fingers over his hair and tell him to get back in the car. So he does. You clean up the car, fill the tank with the last gas can in the trunk, and you go.

John shares the water with Casey when she wakes up, but you refuse when he offers it over, drinking a flat can of warm orange soda instead. It's fine. You don't mind.

It's the a few days before you find a new group—you're exhausted, Casey is hungry, and John is looking kind of ill. You don't have antibiotics, but these people do, and their doctor is kind enough to craft an injection for him, a large woman with dark hair and bright eyes and thick glasses like John's.

There's a blond near the back of the group as the others come up to meet you and you're in the middle of chatting with John, who looks better than he has in days already, when your hands stutter to a stop and you stand up. John asks you what's wrong but you don't hear him, you don't react, you just stare through your shades at the man before you, freckled, blond, shades on, and in a red varsity jacket with one sleeve knotted up by his shoulder.

_Dave_? You sign it frantically, and he pushes through the crowd to come to the forefront and John, who saw your hands move, shifts so that you can dart past him and slam into your older brother at full speed, full weight. You're sobbing, he's missing an arm, but he's alive and the arm he _does_ have curls around you and holds you close.

"I got you, little man," he murmurs, like he used to when you were a kid and all this started, and you bury your face in against him. You feel years of agonizing fall off of you all at once, and you're not surprised when you find out he's the leader of this group and that he's been looking for you. John pops up by your side holding Casey and Dave gives you a questioning look but you shake your head and explain that you found her a while back and picked her up. You had to, she was all alone.

He understands.

That night, after you've babbled Dave's eyes out by signing so fast that he's the only one that can keep up with you aside from John even though Dave taught most of the people in the group just in case one of them ever found you, you settle by John and he seems oddly quiet. Casey is asleep next to him and he has a hand on her hair and you're about to ask him what's wrong when you realize that John _saw_ his father die, so there's no chance of him getting that kind of perfect moment of reunion with him like you had with your older brother. So you don't say anything, you just lean heavily against his good shoulder and put your hand on top of his. You can feel his shoulders shaking a little after a moment and you know he's crying but you don't call attention to it, instead hooking your pinkies and resting your temple against his, silent and patient. He cries himself out but quiet, like he's afraid of anyone knowing he has a setting that isn't _smile bright until it cracks_. You love him, you think, but you know he's not into dudes so you don't tell him that either, just keep it burning quiet in your chest so that no one knows it but you.

And probably Dave, but you've always been an easy read for him.

It's fine. You'll take it to your grave. For now, you just sit together in silence.

Things with the new group are good. It's a good fit. A good family. Dave practically adopts John too, and that's a good fit. They mesh well, in a brotherly way, and it's not too much of a sting because Dave isn't _father_ age so he doesn't ping those buttons too hard. It works. Dave gives you meaningful looks sometimes, but you always pretend you don't see them. Raising Casey is easier too, with a whole village around her. She lightens up, talks more. It's good for her. She still latches onto John and you the most though, which feels nice.

Pairs get sent out to scout supplies and look for new people and you go out with John each time because you work best together and Dave has to stay behind to take care of things at home. Once, when you come back, you catch him in deep conversation with a short man with dark skin, pure white hair, and an eye patch, but they part as soon as they notice you've come back. You raise your eyebrows over the top of your glasses and Dave flushes, and you know enough as you turn back to John, but that makes Dave nudge you back and _you_ flush and that's just too much.

You lock it down harder, because John just looks confused as to why you're blushing. It's fine. You're fine.

On one of your trips you almost get got and you're not fine, you're not fine, you can't even scream as you're shoved back by an overzealous dead thing that got the jump on you and wants to bite you to rend you to eat you, the sound dies in your throat like all others, but then you're covered in viscera before it can chomp down because John's smashed its head in with a sledgehammer. Has he always been able to lift a fucking sledgehammer? Holy shit.

_Holy shit_ , you manage, hands shaking, but instead of answering he's kissing you, and you sign _holy shit_ again to no one as you kiss him back. You press up into it like a man drowning, starving, aching, and lose your fingers in his dark hair. He kisses you again, and again, and again, until you're out of breath and you just look at him with wide eyes, shades askew and blood still splattered across your face.

You cut the journey short and go back empty-handed, but when Dave sees you splattered he understands and John and you both get much-needed baths and fresh clothes. John kisses you again then, when you're both dressed, and you grip his shirt tight with both hands because you don't need words when you're kissing him senseless.

John has words though.

"Were you going to wait until the world ended to kiss me?" He says, the cheeky fuck, and you let out a wheezing laugh and kiss him again.

Maybe some of the darkness on the world is lifting just a little. You think you can manage.


End file.
